Mars | Facts, Surface, Temperature, & Atmosphere | Britannica

Mars, fourth planet in the solar system in order of distance from the Sun and seventh in size and mass. It is a periodically conspicuous reddish object in the night sky. Mars is designated by the symbol .

An especially serene view of Mars (Tharsis side), a composite of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in April 1999. The northern polar cap and encircling dark dune field of Vastitas Borealis are visible at the top of the globe. White water-ice clouds surround the most prominent volcanic peaks, including Olympus Mons near the western limb, Alba Patera to its northeast, and the line of Tharsis volcanoes to the southeast. East of the Tharsis rise can be seen the enormous near-equatorial gash that marks the canyon system Valles Marineris.

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Sometimes called the Red Planet, Mars has long been associated with warfare and slaughter. It is named for the Roman god of war. As long as 3,000 years ago, Babylonian astronomer-astrologers called the planet Nergal for their god of death and pestilence. The planets two moons, Phobos (Greek: Fear) and Deimos (Terror), were named for two of the sons of Ares and Aphrodite (the counterparts of Mars and Venus, respectively, in Greek mythology).

In recent times Mars has intrigued people for more-substantial reasons than its baleful appearance. The planet is the second closest to Earth, after Venus, and it is usually easy to observe in the night sky because its orbit lies outside Earths. It is also the only planet whose solid surface and atmospheric phenomena can be seen in telescopes from Earth. Centuries of assiduous studies by earthbound observers, extended by spacecraft observations since the 1960s, have revealed that Mars is similar to Earth in many ways. Like Earth, Mars has clouds, winds, a roughly 24-hour day, seasonal weather patterns, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons, and other familiar features. There are intriguing clues that billions of years ago Mars was even more Earth-like than today, with a denser, warmer atmosphere and much more waterrivers, lakes, flood channels, and perhaps oceans. By all indications Mars is now a sterile frozen desert. However, close-up images of dark streaks on the slopes of some craters during Martian spring and summer suggest that at least small amounts of water may flow seasonally on the planets surface, and radar reflections from a possible lake under the south polar cap suggest that water may still exist as a liquid in protected areas below the surface. The presence of water on Mars is considered a critical issue because life as it is presently understood cannot exist without water. If microscopic life-forms ever did originate on Mars, there remains a chance, albeit a remote one, that they may yet survive in these hidden watery niches. In 1996 a team of scientists reported what they concluded to be evidence for ancient microbial life in a piece of meteorite that had come from Mars, but most scientists have disputed their interpretation.

Since at least the end of the 19th century, Mars has been considered the most hospitable place in the solar system beyond Earth both for indigenous life and for human exploration and habitation. At that time, speculation was rife that the so-called canals of Marscomplex systems of long, straight surface lines that very few astronomers had claimed to see in telescopic observationswere the creations of intelligent beings. Seasonal changes in the planets appearance, attributed to the spread and retreat of vegetation, added further to the purported evidence for biological activity. Although the canals later proved to be illusory and the seasonal changes geologic rather than biological, scientific and public interest in the possibility of Martian life and in exploration of the planet has not faded.

During the past century Mars has taken on a special place in popular culture. It has served as inspiration for generations of fiction writers from H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the heyday of the Martian canals to Ray Bradbury in the 1950s and Kim Stanley Robinson in the 90s. Mars has also been a central theme in radio, television, and film, perhaps the most notorious case being Orson Welless radio-play production of H.G. Wellss novel War of the Worlds, which convinced thousands of unwitting listeners on the evening of October 30, 1938, that beings from Mars were invading Earth. The planets mystique and many real mysteries remain a stimulus to both scientific inquiry and human imagination to this day.

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Mars | Facts, Surface, Temperature, & Atmosphere | Britannica